


heart's reflection

by gloss



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Banter, Established Relationship, Force-Sensitive Finn, M/M, bickering over snackfoods, dragons!, hold me fest, natural history of the gffa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:07:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26556337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloss/pseuds/gloss
Summary: The next-to-last leg of a ridiculously arduous, trouble-filled journey home finds Poe and Finn grounded on a backwater moon when an endangered species starts hatching.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Finn
Comments: 23
Kudos: 57
Collections: Hold Me: A Comfort Prompfest





	heart's reflection

**Author's Note:**

> for [this prompt](https://sholio.dreamwidth.org/1347813.html?thread=19974373#cmt19974373) in sholio's [Hold Me: Comfort Prompt Fest](https://sholio.dreamwidth.org/1347813.html). idk, maybe I have a weird understanding of "comfort".
> 
> title & epigraph from [My Heart's Reflection](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vk2hIuCk4L0), Yo La Tengo.

> I want just us two, I don't want to have to hide my heart  
>  I wanna see it in your eyes as we ride on and on.

"Sorry to say, but we're going nowhere fast," Poe says when he rejoins Finn in the dingy spaceport lounge on Peutinger-III. He passes over a warm sack. "Beans?"

"Thanks." Finn digs in, stuffing his mouth with the steamy, spicy beans. He hasn't had a true meal in several cycles; he can't remember how long it's been. About as long since he slept more than four hours at a stretch. "What'd they say? Uranic compressor again?"

"Nah, ship's great," Poe mumbles, his gaze fixed on the beans. Each time he moves to take some, Finn's hand gets in the way. "For once."

They should have been back from the Ventrix system five cycles ago, but the negotiations ran long before spluttering out in failure. Then the refurb'ed yacht they'd arrived in was impounded for unpaid duties; the rickety freighter they managed to get for a halfway decent price blew out both the uranic compressor and the O2 lines after two hyperspace jumps. Hiking overland to the moon's one settlement large enough to sustain ship mechanics had meant fending off voracious frond-raptors and fording glacially-cold rapids. Twice, because they got turned around and argued about which direction to take.

Now they're one jump closer to base, only to be faced with yet another hold-up.

"Which is what?" Finn asks.

Poe reaches for the sack of beans. "Share, and I'll tell you."

Finn curls both arms around the sack. "But these are mine."

"But I'm hungry, too."

"But you got these for me."

They stare at each other for a good long while, fighting the smiles threatening to take over their faces. They're so tired, and it's been such a ridiculously arduous trip, that they're teetering on the thin sharp edge of hysteria and have been for hours on hours.

"Gimme!" Poe feints right and grabs with his left. 

Finn blocks him with the Force, easy as breathing. Poe ends up splayed on the gritty duracrete floor, laughing helplessly until he wheezes. His shirt rides up over his belly, his hair's in his eyes, and he can neither breathe nor think straight.

"Here," Finn says, and feeds him precisely one single solitary smashed bean. "You're welcome. Now tell me what's keeping us here."

Eyes wet, chest tight, Poe pulls himself up to a seated position, then hooks one arm around Finn's calf. "Wait, I still didn't tell you?"

"No, handsome, you did not." When Poe rests his head against Finn's knee, Finn tangles his hand in Poe's hair.

"Fire lizards hatching," Poe says softly, tipping back into Finn's touch, his eyes drifting closed. "All over. Protected species, can't take off until they're done."

"Fire lizards?"

Poe opens his eyes. "You know, like little baby dragons? Fire lizards."

"I'm way too tired and hungry for this," Finn tells him. The marrow in every bone in his body is leaden and his eyes feel, somehow, gritty and gummy at the same time. "Please just tell me what the hold up is?"

"Fire lizards."

"Poe."

"What? I'm not kidding!"

"There are little baby dragons being born all over this moon," Finn says as slowly and carefully as he can. Poe has gotten him to believe some ridiculous shit, but this might be the worst.

"Technically, they're hatching."

"Hatching. Right now. Right outside this building."

Poe scrubs both hands over his face and sits up straighter. "When you put it like that, what the _hell_ are we still doing inside?"

"Exactly what I was about to say —" Finn's on his feet, yanking Poe up, while simultaneously moving toward the exit. Poe stumbles after him.

Outside, the warm, humid air wreathes around them; mist hangs tangled among the treetops and around the bases of the sharp-peaked mountains. Shuffling out of the freighter across to the port with his eyes half-closed, Finn barely noticed anything when they arrived. Now, however, the world greets him with a thousand muted shades of green, gold, and lavender. Intricately scalloped lichens carpet the ground as well as the low, flat rocks scattered everywhere.

Finn stands still, breathing in the light wind, rolling back his shoulders, opening to the Force. Pinpricks of light twinkle across the landscape; many are gathered in clumps beside the rocks, gleaming together, but a few are already solitary and in motion, tiny candle-flames guttering.

"Over there —" He points past the last of the port outbuildings, to a small rise overcrowded with rocks. Poe nods, but doesn't move. Instead, he stares at Finn, gaze open and frank, somehow unabashed. "What?"

"It's just never not going to be amazing when you do that," Poe says simply, then shoves Finn lightly. Swats his ass, shoulder-checks him, drops a kiss on their joined hands. "Lead the way, Force-maestro."

Up the rise, over several precarious rocks, around to a shadowy stretch roped with exposed tree roots, they find a small spring oozing fresh water into the lichens. It forms the smallest waterfall Finn has ever seen — a matter of five or six centimeters from first glint to the base of the fall — spilling down into a shallow depression on another rock before gathering enough volume to become a stream snaking around the rocks. On the far side of the tiny falls, in a triangular space between two rocks, a clutch of five small eggs is hidden. They are each no larger than half the width of Finn's palm; they look slightly leathery and purple.

"Whoa," Poe breathes, squatting beside Finn. "How'd you know?" He shakes his head. "Never mind, dumb question."

Finn hushes him. Expectation pulls together, moment after moment, focusing his gaze and slowing his breath, until a tiny clicking comes from one egg. A click, a tap, and the egg trembles; the clicking accelerates, and a crack the size of a fingernail paring appears, then widens under more tapping from inside.

"Egg tooth," Poe murmurs. Finn nods, though he's never heard the term before.

More tapping, more trembles, come from a second egg, the one furthest away. The first egg is struggling to enlarge its initial crack. 

Behind his lids, each time he blinks, Finn sees the small lights. He feels them tap against his ribs from the inside. A third egg shivers, while the first burps a minuscule spark that sizzles the crack and pushes it apart. Inside, the dragon is all snout, questing, scenting, testing the air; a few strings of pink albumen cling to its face.

Its head emerges, then one tiny clawed arm. The bulbous eyes open, reflecting the waterfall in glints of silver. When it yawns, another few sparks fly upward, then wink out.

Finn catches a spark on his fingertip. It burns for a second, then dwindles to gray.

"Is it hungry?" Poe whispers. "Should we feed it? Do you have any more beans?"

"It's fine," Finn replies as the dragon pauses, just one leg left in its shell, to lick its face clean with red forked tongue. "See?"

On quivering legs, the dragon makes its awkward way to the water. It pauses several times, its tiny ribs heaving. In the shadows of the rocks, its coloration matches the lichens: dull grays, frills of purple and olive. When it slides into the water, however, its body flashes first gold, then scarlet; it pulls itself tight, fore- and back-limbs drawn together, then explodes forward, down the stream, surging in a spurt of flame.

Another egg in the clutch shakes under its resident's tapping. The second dragon sucks thoughtfully on one edge of its broken egg; it doesn't seem to be in any hurry as it gazes up at the sky.

All over this moon, eggs are splitting open and sparks are flying out. They swarm over Finn's vision, warm his chest, tingle over his pores. He exhales, then inhales, and for a moment feels the whole of the moon, crust and rocks, moss and algae, lichen and peaks, shy birds and bold dragons, feels it all tremble and _live_ as one with him.

Beside him, Poe lies on his stomach, chin pillowed on his arms, to watch the eggs. Finn rests his hand on the small of Poe's back. He grounds himself on the warm, taut skin, tries to communicate what he has felt, tries, in turn, to feel what Poe does — naked enthusiasm, enthralled attention, devoted witness. Shares, back and forth, together.

"Told you," Poe says later, when they're ambling back to the port, hand in hand. They're a little stiff from the growing chill and the rocks, but sharing the kind of quiet they often do — weary, companionable, _pleased_. Finn never thought such quiet, let alone shared, was possible, let alone desirable.

Now he doesn't know what he'd do without it.

"Told me what?" He squeezes Poe's hand.

Snorting, shrugging, Poe says, "Can't remember. Man, I'm tired. Forget it."

"Never," Finn tells him, making it an oath. 

Startled, Poe stops short and looks at him, blinking fast. The light from the port buildings makes him look old and lined, then frantic and washed out, before he just looks like himself, familiar and gorgeous.

"Fair enough," he says and grins. "First dibs on the snack machine, though."


End file.
